“Uncle Tom’s Cabin” Published This Date in 1852
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Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. was the best-selling novel of the 19th century and the second best-selling book of that century, following the Bible.
It is credited with helping fuel the abolitionist cause in the 1850s. The book and the plays it inspired helped popularize a number of stereotypes about black people. These include the affectionate, dark-skinned “mammy”; the “pickaninny” stereotype of black children; and the “Uncle Tom”, or dutiful, long-suffering servant faithful to his white master or mistress. In recent years, the negative associations with Uncle Tom’s Cabinhave, to an extent, overshadowed the historical impact of the book as a “vital antislavery tool.”
The Civil War led to a brief period of freedom known as the Reconstruction Era.
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